Selecting Occupational Safety Equipment by MCDM Approach Considering Universal Design Principles

Occupational safety concept, which has become a major subject in all industries, has a vital importance in preventing accidents and ensuring a safe working environment. This study proposes an integrated approach to evaluate occupational safety equipment by considering universal design (UD) and technical requirements, both separately and simultaneously. UD principles are concerned with making things usable for anyone, whatever their conditions may be, without any requirements for rearrangement. Two robust multicriteria decision making (MCDM) aid methods, AHP and fuzzy PROMETHEE, are employed to handle the evaluation process in the presented study. The study also includes a demonstration of the proposed approach on a real MCDM problem. The study findings indicate that the proposed approach is valid and accurate, and the inclusion of UD principles has a positive and comprehensive effect on the selection process. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.